


T’Pring and Vulcan Divorce Activism

by Reyka_Sivao



Category: Star Trek
Genre: Gen, Pon Farr, Vulcan, Vulcan Biology, Vulcan Bond, Vulcan Culture, biography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 21:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21278315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyka_Sivao/pseuds/Reyka_Sivao
Summary: Moar academicesque essays





	T’Pring and Vulcan Divorce Activism

Born in 2230, T’Pring of Vulcan was bonded to Spock son of Sarek in 2237, when they were both seven years of age. 

In 2267, when both of them were 37 years old, Spock began to suffer from pon farr aboard the enterprise. With the help of Captain Kirk, he managed to make it to Vulcan and declared _ kun-ut kal-if-fee. _

However, T’Pring wished not to mate with Spock, and had chosen instead her lover Stonn. 

Therefore, as was her legal right, she declared _ kal-if-fee, _translated “the challenge”. Specifically, she declared the right to choose a champion to fight for her hand in marriage—and formally revoked her right to self-determination as the price of doing so. 

Originally, she had planned to select her lover Stonn as her champion; however, when she saw that Spock had brought down human companions to the kal-if-fee, she elected to choose Captain Kirk as her champion—sparing her lover the risk of death, and gambling that Kirk would not have any desire to own her, and that Spock would reject her for having forced him to murder his friend. 

Ultimately, Spock’s pon farr was resolved when he believed he had killed Kirk, although Kirk was actually only unconscious. 

Legally, this left her in an uncertain place. Had she said nothing, her ownership would have been assumed to have deferred to Stonn after Spock’s rejection. 

However, representing herself, T’Pring argued that her rejection by the ultimate victor left her once again able to determine her own destiny. 

This argument, was, ultimately, accepted by Vulcan’s highest courts. Thus; T’Pring was left in the unusual position of being her own actor in a highly anti-feminist field. 

Finding herself in a highly unusual position, T’Pring determined that she was in a unique position to affect the future of Vulcan divorce law. 

As such, she named herself plaintiff and opened several legal proceedings against Vulcan marriage law that had previously gone uncontested for decades if not centuries. 

She successfully argued that, as no one with standing had claimed her, she was still able to act as a free agent. 

Once the Vulcan courts ruled in her favor, she sued to argue that the rule allowing Vulcan women to divorce only in the case of male ownership was illegal by the federation standards of sexual equivalency. 

It took several years of argument by the courts, but ultimately, T’Pring was awarded both victory and damages by the Vulcan legal system, and the precedent was set: A Vulcan woman could seek legal divorce and still be her own legal agent. 

With this precedent, more Vulcan women followed in T’Pring’s footsteps, and divorced their childhood bondmates—with time, now, for their bondmates to seek alternative arrangements. 

Unexpectedly to T’Pring, this precedent had another effect: Men, especially those attracted to other men, ALSO began divorcing their wives before pon farr made things unavoidable. As a result of her actions, both women and men began to be able to escape unwanted childhood bonds. 

After this, T’Pring gradually more of a gender abolitionist, arguing that, according to the federation laws, Vulcan marriage law was unconstitutional and should be outweighed by the federation’s gender-neutral marriage law, and therefore that by extension, Vulcan’s gender-based law was entirely obsolete. 

As a result of her activism, while child bonding was not eradicated, the circumstances available for legal divorce were greatly expanded, and many who were bonded to incompatible mates in childhood were able to dissolve their bondings and free themselves to enter more fulfilling marriages.


End file.
